Everyday Ethics

Six Degrees of Separation: Questions for Consideration

This week's installment in the Ethical Dilemmas on Film series is the 1993 film adaptation of the John Guare play Six Degrees of Separation.

This week's installment in the Ethical Dilemmas on Film series is the 1993 film adaptation of the John Guare play Six Degrees of Separation. In addition to spawning the game that would put a certain actor at the hub of all cosmic intersections, the film touches on a number of issues that are worthy of our consideration. Here are some questions and suggestions to get you started in your thinking about the film:

Six Degrees of Separation was written and first performed as a play. How can you tell? Why does it matter?

Why is Jeffrey from South Africa?

What is the importance of the Kandinsky painting?

Think about these lines:

"I'm trying to keep this abstract."

"I still don't fully understand how this came about or the sequence in which it came about."

"That everything can be blamed on a bad childhood just doesn't hold water."

The imagination = "what is most uniquely us."

"Safe."

"Imagination is not our escape. On the contrary it's the place we're all trying to get to."